Nor to me.
Would have much more of a ring to it if they dropped the 666, for sure.
Sound too much like Destruction then.
Lame. They didn't even mention Impaled Northern Moon Forest..
Send it in. They will include it. If you've got some more, they'd be welcome.
I am a bit of a platonist, I suppose, with regards to metal. Metal is an absolute, and there is metal, regardless what at any given time people might mistakenly call "metal."
Then you find yourself in a philosophical quandry. When did true metal first start, and what was the first true metal song? Music is a progressive continuum. All the "true metal" bands are just amplified rip offs of older bands to some degree. I mean all the Black Metallers are just overblown clones of Venom, who were trying their darndest to sound like a Satanic version of Motorhead. Motorhead were of course were just amplified rock n' roll.
It's all a continuum.
What message is it that you seem to consider so important not to "support"?
Anything that destroys or undermines faith.
Sanctification sometimes entails the mortification of our earthly pleasures. Sometimes it's our music that needs to die to the Lord.
Stryper for the "bad guys"? Hmm. You mean pathetic, untalented pseudo-metal bands whose only purpose is to be as annoying as possible while spreading their "message"? Highly doubt such bands get taken seriously within metal, much less outside of it. Hell, even Burzum is quite good musically, for all of its simplicity/minimalism.
Well, as a musician of many years now, I can honestly say that the whole black/death/extreme metal scene is the one that lacks talent, vision, creativity and life, it's so easy to copy and play. Lyrically it's very bland and banal. (That's why it is dying. It will die completely except for a few good stalwart bands, and then in about ten years it will come back. Always has, always will.) Although what you call "pseudo metal" may not always be the best example of those great virtues either, at least there's room to move without some fickle poseur fan base carrying on like ManoWar with cries of "death to false metal".
I doubt Immortal or Deicide will ever reach the musical heights of Meshuggah or Dream Theatre, for example.
Regardless, early Norwegian black metal is an exception as they took their professed beliefs to ridiculous extremes. I suppose it could be worse though.. the early goregrind scene might have taken themselves as seriously.
Half the problem with the whole Black Metal scene is that they do take themselves too seriously, they're basically a self parody and they don't even realise it.
